Canning bacon
Is there a safe way to can bacon in glass mason jars? The commercial raw bacon I have bought in the past is thin, and packed in fat. Perhaps all of the fat is due to preserving the product?
Marcia Clupper
South Whitley, Indiana
There was an article in BHM recently by Enola Gay on just that subject, complete with photos. Here is the link: http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/gay127.html. I think you’ll find it will be a lot of help. — Jackie
Growing asparagus
I have 2 and 3-year-old asparagus growing in the garden. They look like long thin fronds. How do I get the asparagus I can eat? I have kept an eye on them from late winter until now and I don’t have any spears.
Veronica Hinkle
Hodges, South Carolina
It depends on the quality and age of your initial root planting. Some companies sell “one-year-old roots” that are really small. These usually take three years to make decent spears. Others sell hefty, very large roots and these take off and make good spears the next year. We got ours from Nourse Nurseries and they produced big spears and lots of them the very first year! But we were strong and didn’t cut a one. Oh, that was hard! Now we’re harvesting spears every other day. Why don’t you mulch your ferns with a nice side dressing of well-rotted manure — about four inches deep on each side of the row, right around the plants. Then do it again in the fall. Asparagus likes to have plenty of fertilizer! That should do the trick and you should be picking nice spears, come spring. Don’t harvest too heavily the first year, only a couple of weeks so the plants can build up heavy roots for the years to come. — Jackie
One other possible thing for the asparagus. It doesn’t grow well in heavy, clay soil. That can be compounded if it was planted too deep. One end of my bed had this exact problem. After a few years, the divisions made by the plants found their own level and beefed up in thickness.
Comments are closed.